Joe Berkowitz is a nerd. He’s the kind of nerd who will get interested in a subject, say artisan cheese, and he will do what he can to learn about from every angle. He will meet cheesemongers, cheese influencers, cheesemakers, cheese scientists, and cheese award winners. He will travel across the country to attend cheese festivals, cheese awards, cheese parties, and even a cheese burlesque show. And then he will take all those cheese adventures and write about them, creating a goofy love letter to American artisan cheeses, cheese producers, and cheese lovers.
Berkowitz starts out a complete novice in the world of cheese, but he comes at the cheese world with an open mind and empty stomach. And the more he learns, the more he understands how little he knows. He starts where most of us would probably start, at the local cheese shop. He’s in New York, so he’s not too far from the mecca of cheese in America, Murray’s. He got reservations for his wife and himself for a Valentine’s Day tasting, and he learned of a world of artisan cheese that went far beyond plastic-covered slices and boxed macaroni and cheese.
From there, it’s a series of tasty adventures as Berkowitz visits farms and meets the people (and cows, sheep, and goats) responsible for creating cheese. He meets Mr. Moo, Adam Moskowitz, who throws the Cheesemonger International every year, a giant cheese rave that Berkowitz calls “Wrestlemania for curd nerds.” He gets himself invited to one of the monthly Cheese Day lunches for a group of cheese-loving scientists at the Natural History Museum. He meets the Instagram influencers Madame Fromage and Cheese Sex Death, and he and his wife get confused and show up at a huge cheese party dressed in lederhosen and dirndl.
HIs expedition continues, to more farms, more cheese festivals, more competitions, and to meet more cheese lovers whose craft is celebrated and devoured all over the world. The more people he meets, the more he learns, and the more he learns, the more he teaches us. Be prepared before you read this book. Before you’re even halfway through, you’ll be following at least a dozen cheese lovers and/or makers on social media and have a list of cheese you want to look for the next time you wander into your local cheese shop. You’ll think about starting a monthly tasting club for your friends, or you daydream about possible pairings. Which cheese will go with your favorite wine? Your favorite pasta? Your favorite M&Ms? (Berkowitz says he likes Gruyere with his).
American Cheese is an odyssey, a fun and fascinating, emotional and enticing, punny and pop-culture filled extravaganza of cheese knowledge and celebration. If you want to know a little more about cheese, this will take you down a rabbit hole into a whole different world, and you will never want to return to the same old cheese you were eating before.
For me, I am so thrilled to have gone on this pilgrimage with Berkowitz. I had so much fun, and I learned far more than I expected. I feel like I can talk cheese like a journeyman, and I can definitely up my cheese board game from this. But more than learning a bunch of facts about bacteria or farming or what it takes to pass a CCP exam (that’s Certified Cheese Professional), I feel like I was brought into the American artisan cheese family, and that feels like a very special place to be. I recommend American Cheese to anyone who loves to read about food, or really, to anyone who loves to eat cheese. You will love it even more story by story.
A copy of American Cheese was provided by Harper Perennial, with many thanks.
